James’ 2017 Projects: Hound of Eden, Dark Fantasy and More

Today, I got thinking about my accomplishments in 2016 and what I want to accomplish in 2017 in terms of books (and art). I’ve decided that I’m going to take on 5 and a half projects next year, which will exceed my 4.5-ish books of this year: Blood Hound, Stained Glass, Burn Artist, Fix Your Damn Book, a longish short story for a super-secret project in December, and probably about half of Cold Cell.

I’ve never been one of those authors who can just keep pumping out books, month after month, and make 8-10 releases a year. That kind of sweatshop method is becoming fairly common in Urban Fantasy, but the diagram below applies:

I really like the first two much more than the third.

I’m not interested in the quick buck. 3-6 months between books is enough time for me to properly weave a good story, make cover art, edit (I do my own editing with the help of a very talented friend who spots the things I don’t) and package a quality book with minimal errors. That being said, I’m going to try and write five of the buggers next year – though they may not all be published in 2017.

1. Cold Cell & Wild Hunt

This is where the ‘half’ comes in. Due to family commitments and immigration procedures (I’m in the process of joining my lovely and extraordinary wife in the USA) and the complexity of the book itself, Cold Cell, the third Alexi Sokolsky book, is going to be partly finished this year for a hopeful February release. The Hound of Eden books take about 6 months to write – the plot is complex, with multiple antagonists, and there is a deceptively large cast of characters which expands with the third book.

I have about 30,000 words of draft material at this stage. What I can say about Cold Cell is that Alexi goes to prison, and that his life – and the lives of the other characters – are going to be drastically changed by the end of the novel. Book 3 deepens the mythos of the Dermal Highway vampires (Feeders) as well.

Wild Hunt is the tentative working title for Book 4. Not telling anyone anything about that until Book 3 is out.

Finish Your Damn Book! – How to plan, write and complete your novels

The accompaniment to Fix Your Damn Book, this is the second of the FYBD Series (Fix, Finish, Format and Flaunt). There’s not really much more to say on that, save that it will embody the sum total of my wisdom on the subject of writing and completing novels. As with FYDB, I will be looking at the psychological issues and viewpoints that often interfere with writing and finishing a novel: the main ones being that people give up before they even try, and assume that they don’t have to study craft to make it.

3, 4 & 5: The Warsinger Chronicles (Books 1-3)

This is the project I am super excited about. You may have seen these super-fancy covers floating about here and there:

This is my dark fantasy series project. Set in the original world of Archemi, a setting originally conceived by me and an old D&D friend in Canada, Warsinger follows the interlinking stories of Suri, a traumatized skyknight who served in the world’s Great War and can no longer bear to fly, and Richter, a talented but brittle monastic ranger who struggles with the ghosts of his broken childhood. This unlikely pair team up with assorted others to head off the cataclysmic legacy of the Great War – the return of dragons, and the dragons’ desire to reclaim their old human slaves. To stop them, Suri and Richter are going to have to overcome their issues and recover the ancient technology that freed humankind from the dragons to begin with: The Warsingers. It’s a bit Escaflowne, a bit Azure Bonds, and a bit Dragonlance (but without the existential hopelessness).

The Warsinger Chronicles is a story and a world that’s been in development for quite a while now. I intend to write at least the first three books before publishing the first (to avoid the GRRM Effect), and then release them regularly every 2-3 months while working on Hound of Eden. This means they’re a while off yet, but the first book, Cruel Necessity, is already in production.

There are 6 full-length novels planned and one Suri-centric prequel novella, similar to Burn Artist. Most of the titles are Oliver Cromwell quotes, highlighting the English Civil War-ish feel of the series.

And that’s it for now. Secret short story project is in the works right now. You can preview the Advance Reading sample of Cold Cell here: Part One and Part Two.